I recently played a Late, Hard, GA HRE game. It basically goes exactly as an early game, except you don't have to worry about crusades to the holy land for GA points. I never quite figured out how to "control" two thirds of North Sea trade. I had games in which the Germans were down to three provinces, one of them coastal, having no ships whatsoever, and were still awarded the points. In my game I was the only one having fleets in the North Sea (everybody had turned on me, you know...), and I didn't get the points. Strange, to say the least.
Anyway, I started by putting all of my armies together, as in the first few turns nobody is likely to start a war with you, giving you a breathing span of probably six to eight years. I blitzed the Poles, which is only sensible, and also secured Lithuania by crusade from Prussia. I kept up the crusade production there, mainly to come by some nice Teutonic Knights. You can't easily produce knights anywhere, and you definitely need some heavy cavalry. I also killed the Swiss, if only for producing Swiss Halberdiers and Pikemen. This can be skipped, though, as it cost me A LOT of men. Produce lots of Crossbowmen and Arbalesters, once you can get them, and send them east.
The Hungarians have no other way of expanding than attacking you: In the south they're usually held off by either Turks or Byzantines, and in the east the Horde looms rather large. Against the Hungarians and the Horde, you need a decent supply of superior foot missile units to beat their endless waves of Horse Archers, Szekely, and whatnot. In my game I tried to get a short border to the east (Lithuania plus Kiev are ideal), had a lengthy and rather bloody war against the Hungarians in which I was finally able to push them out of Bulgaria and Hungary proper, securing short borders there, too.
The need for short borders is obvious: You have a large territory and are vulnerable all over. I basically kept one large army per region and defended most provinces with just one unit of crap, to withdraw into the castle once attacked. I could then free the province using the larger army. Key is to outmaneuver the enemy and destroy their actual fighting force. You need to be good on the battle map for this, so you can conserve your troops, as reinforcements usually take a long time getting to the front.
The west was difficult as well, but I had the good luck that the English were (unusually) able to take much of France and hold on to it, buying me some time. If the French seem to be winning against the English, though, stab them in the back as soon as possible. They MUST NOT become a power. Take Lorraine and Burgundy to shorten the border. England left me alone for quite a while, but I kept some armies on that border just in case, so they tied up troops just as if there's been a real threat. The Italians usually concentrate on shipbuilding, trade and overseas expansion, so I left the southern border mostly unguarded. In most of my HRE games, this has proven a viable course of action, as the Italians rarely attack and you simply don't have the armies to defend on all fronts.
Strategically, it is defend-where-you-can, expand-where-it-makes-defense-easier, then. What about money? It's tight. Real tight. And it will stay tight. Try to make the most out of plunder: I went into a building and troop-training spree every time I was able to take a rich province. Try to develop some trade, but don't get your hopes up too much: It takes a while for trade to repay the initial investments of Port, Trader, and many many ships. Besides, you don't have many provinces on the sea, and not all of these have trading goods. I concentrated on farming and mines instead. I typically built 20% and 40% farming as soon as possible and assigned good governors, as well as maxing out tax income. More advanced farms are not recommendable, as they take too much money out of your treasury and don't repay the investment for a long while. Don't waste money on anything you don't need RIGHT NOW. Especially don't bribe anything, don't use mercenaries.
You can make do with your own troops - it's a large country, and in many provinces there's some halfway decent unit to be trained. Just make sure you move these to any of your several fronts on a regular basis - and don't commission too many troops for training, only where you really need them. I had to make do with armies composed of mostly inferior troops for the period, as knights are simply unavailable, and arbalesters need some building up to get. But Chivalric Men-at-Arms can be trained in at least two places, and Halberdiers were a staple of my armies (try to build at least a church where you train them, though!). Still, it was uphill fighting for a long while, Crossbowmen and Militia Sergeants against a lot of Chivalric units in Hungary, and against Mongol Heavy Cavalry, Warriors and Mounted Archers in the east. Be sure to secure some other advantage, like numbers, rain (against archer-heavy armies) and terrain, and keep your casualties low.
In my game I now have a secure east, with Lithuania, Kiev, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria being my border provinces. In the west the English (very powerful now) have taken to attack me, but I could beat their Longbowmen-Billmen-combo by using heavy rain and exclusive melee heavy-hitters (CMAA, and lots of them). This destroyed their most elite army, and I was able to push them out of Flanders. I'm trying to hold at this point and concentrate on naval warfare (slowly turning the table round to my side there as well).
My plans are consolidating a little more, and especially teching up a little. My domain is now so large that I can actually make a little money as long as I look to how I spend it.
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